Gil Blas, in full Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage, published in four volumes—the first two in 1715, the third in 1724, and the fourth in 1735.

Considered one of literature’s first realistic novels, Gil Blas takes an ordinary man through a series of adventures in high and low society. The work helped to popularize the picaresque novel, which was already widespread in Spain, though the work’s happy ending, in which the hero achieves wealth and respectability, gave a new twist to the picaresque tradition.

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early form of novel, usually a first-person narrative, relating the adventures of a rogue or lowborn adventurer (Spanish pícaro) as he drifts from place to place and from one social milieu to another in his effort to survive.

May 6, 1668 Sarzeau, France Nov. 17, 1747 Boulogne prolific French satirical dramatist and author of the classic picaresque novel Gil Blas, which was influential in making the picaresque form a European literary fashion.

picaresque novel by Tobias Smollett, published in 1748. Modeled after Alain-René Lesage’s Gil Blas, the novel consists of a series of episodes that give an account of the life and times of the Scottish rogue Roderick Random. At various times rich and then poor, the hero goes to sea, has romantic entanglements, travels the world, discovers his long-lost father, and marries his true...